Is it more important for K-12 students to learn facts or to enjoy learning? Is it more important for students to learn about their own country or to know something about the world?  Which is more critical, for students to complete Algebra II or to be able to work harmoniously with a small team of peers?  Which will result in a more competitive workforce? A wiser population of adults?

Would you rather that students at the end of their 12 years of school emerged with ideas about their own future and their individual dreams, or perhaps to have sweated night and day, spending up to 10-12 hours a day studying to pass tests?

Is it fair to ask these questions? Are they relevant?  Must there be forced choices?

If we were working with a team of the foremost educational experts and redesigning schools for the future, what critical components would rise to the top of our list? Who would we invite to plan with us? Would we want this to be a U.S.-based and operated endeavor or to include a team of international experts? Would it make any difference to the outcome? How do we avoid the communication difficulties and the problems coming to consensus when individuals come to the group with different philosophies, beliefs, preferences, and thinking styles?

Are we caught in a cycle, almost like a hamster on on a wheel, where we keep running in circles?  Stephen Covey starts with “first things first.”  What should be first?

What is it like for students to learn in various environments — public schools, private schools, charter schools, boarding schools, in homogenous settings, with a multi-cultural group of peers and teachers?  How important is the physical structure of the school building, the resources, the quality of the teachers? If you could change just one variable what it would it be? Is the size of the school important — do small schools really make a difference?

And what of students who are the poorest, who live in poverty, whose schools have dirt floors and no walls, where there are no books? What improvements have occured in these schools in the last 10-15 years?

We have concrete answers to some of these questions. And in some areas we can see improvements. What’s next? How can you be part of the solution?

Just some random thoughts as I reflect on the research I did this week and the discussions I had with others about quality teaching and improving education — in the U.S. and internationally.

Obama’s State of the Union speech is tonight. Reflecting on the past year, I find it has been a year of recovery. States, individuals, businesses, and organizations have been dramatically impacted by the economy. What has happened in the U.S. has had resounding ripple effects around the world and fortunately for some, some countries are in better shape than we are here. So if last year’s theme was recovery, what should we look forward to in 2010? We will find in some cases it will be more of the same. Recovery won’t happen simultaneously in all sectors. In fact, some areas may face more hardships before truly embarking on recovery. And sometimes the road will be bumpy.  Yet, these things are important: that we do our best to get it right — with caring, with competence, and with an eye on the future and guidance from the past. 

In education, we have historic opportunities to recreate and reinvent. NCLB does need to be overhauled and ARRA and Race to the Top offer tremendous opportunities for schools.  While in India, as an Assistant Principal of a small school, I found that I could initiate change and implement policies without the burden of layers of bureaucracy.  As with small, start-up businesses, this allowed me to be nimble.  We moved quickly towards student-driven instruction and individual plans for students as adjustments were made in curriculum and instruction to find a better match between student skills and needs and school expectations. I worked closely with teachers to help them gain confidence and to learn to trust that establishing a good educational foundation would help students advance their knowledge and skills.  This wasn’t always easy — some of it seems counterintuitive. The end goal: excellent education and good scores on Cambridge exams demanded an aggressive approach to learning. However, there are times when simply pushing students and teachers creates frustration and confusion.  I conveyed that we must trust that time would not move in a linear fashion, but rather that by slowing down (and attending to basics) right now that we would move ahead more quickly later.

The opportunity educators face in 2010 is to expand our vision, to move towards refining our instructional approaches, and to continue to correct injustices, our false starts, and imperfections. To me it is not about creating a ”one size fits all education” but rather about helping teachers customize educational experiences so that youth are fully engaged and responsive. It means tuning into and listening to students — actually hearing beyond their words and actions — to reflect on the gestalt, even as we handle the day to day situations that arise.

In this era, in 2010, as we work to improve assessments, we have an opportunity to improve instruction, to help youth reach a deeper understanding, and to engage with many in an exciting journey as we move forward. While states, commissions, educational consortia, researchers, and administrators may not be able to be as nimble as I was in India, we do have an opporunity to reflect, to do our part not to be a part of the educational problem, to uphold and promote visions, and to serve youth by bringing our best to the table.

After being out of the States for 4 months, I have returned to find that Race to the Top is one of the Obama administration’s catalysts for significant education reform. During the past week I attended 3 Race to the Top Assessment hearings, all held in DC.  Here are comments I submitted:

January 19, 2009

Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
Attention: Race to the Top Assessment Program
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue SW
Room 3E108
Washington, DC 20202

To Whom it May Concern:

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed Race to the Top Assessment Program. We applaud the Department for taking the initiative to establish an ambitious and competitive process to revise the standardized assessments. This is long overdue. For far too long children and teachers have suffered as states have systematically implemented a wealth of procedures that have dramatically revised the school calendar as schools, districts, and states have scrambled to show that students are scoring higher scores on outdated and antiquated tests. We are looking forward to an era with a renewed emphasis on TEACHING and INSTRUCTION.

In preparing this response, we have reviewed testimony by others and attended three of the public RTT Assessment meetings. We have also reflected on research regarding learning and achievement. As the Department proceeds with synthesizing all of the input it has received, we urge you to consider these factors:

1. Technology is available to present exciting options for student demonstration of problem solving, teaming, and application of skills. We hope the Department will encourage applicants to push the envelope in the use of these innovative technologies so that higher order thinking skills can be demonstrated in creative ways that reflect our everyday use of technology. Tests can be interactive and include diagrams, videoclips, and interesting visuals.

2. Research on human learning clearly demonstrates that when individuals are able to set their own goals for learning on topics of interest to the individual that more learning occurs. Knowing this, is it essential that each and every child be held to the same standards across a multitude of subjects? Or rather would better overall results be obtained if students were to identify perhaps 2-3 areas/subjects for intensive investigation and be tested at a higher level in these areas, with a more general test administered for other subjects? Let self-determination and student-driven instruction be the lynch-pins for this new program of assessments.

We believe, and considerable research on student-centered instruction supports, that when students are more engaged that they learn more, more quickly. Recent research in the area of universal design for learning (UDL) and related brain research clearly shows that motivation and affective centers of the brain are “lit up” when individuals are pursuing subjects of interest to them. CAST and others have described this in relation to Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” –the optimal zone for learning where individuals are duly challenged but also encouraged by their rate of learning.

3. UDL also provides a way to facilitate test accommodations through building accommodations into tests, rather than adding accommodations after the test has been designed. Such an approach to test design would allow for the greatest consideration of the diversity of learners and their needs and strengths and would facilitate testing for individuals with disabilities as well as students with limited English proficiency (or English as a Second Language).

4. Those on the front line using the assessments and instructing students need to be involved in designing the assessments and reviewing templates for data summary and feedback to teachers. We recommend that input be obtained both from panels of teachers representing diverse perspectives and also from teachers who have received awards for their teaching excellence.

5. International exam and accreditation systems incorporate teamwork into their measurement of student skills — teamwork is critical to our workforce and should be part of what is measured.

6. Formative assessment and authentic, curriculum-based assessments are key for measuring student learning. Rather than designing one test, flexibility is needed so that teachers and schools could choose to target the topics/subjects they are emphasizing. This would mean that in addition to a common platform of topics, that schools that specialize in the arts, in technology, in math, etc. would have options for showcasing their strengths.

7. The assessment design process with the consortia of states, state requirements for procurement, and the other Department of Education requirements should not impede our ability to create the very best tests. Sometimes the best designs come not from a group process with all the compromises that are often made, but rather from the genius of a single person or a small group of people. However, consensus will be needed at some point. Knowing this, we urge the Department not to burden the creative process or dilute the final product through rigid adherence to lock step efforts of a cross-state consortia. Instead, here are some alternatives:

a. The Department might be able to implement a 2 or 3 step process, perhaps by supporting a selected group of researchers, test designers, and educational experts to come together for 2-3 day meetings (or perhaps a series of meetings) to consider options and barriers and come to conclusions regarding the creative aspects PRIOR to the state consortia process. Perhaps then the results of these meetings could serve as a springboard for the state consortia.
b. A vehicle like the SBIR (Small Business Innovations Research) process might be used to fund small scale pilots prior to widescale design and implementation.
c. Could other ways be found to phase-in the implementation so that adequate feedback and consensus is found prior to final development?
d. States should not be required to stick with the assessment vendors they team with. That would be the equivalent of telling consumers to buy a Ford simply because it was made in the US rather than allowing performance to be the yardstick for marketplace endorsements.

e. Some states may want to sign on to 2-3 consortia as part of different approaches to being involved and designing tests. While initially they may be able to sign on to more than one team, the number of sign-ons should be limited – this would require states to use some discretion in their endorsement process. Perhaps the competition could include a pre-ap phase where up to 3 sign-ons are allowed for individual states. At the point of the invitation for the final application, states should be allowed to only sign on to only one plan.
f. At least three national projects should be funded.

In closing, thanks again for the opportunity to overhaul our archaic assessment systems. We are looking forward to this next era of educational assessment and educational innovations. Please contact me if I can be of assistance in considering these important next steps.

Sincerely,

Christine Y. Mason, Ph.D.
Executive Director